Since my arrival here, I have used this as a place in which to make political and social comments, reserving theological comments for other venues, however this seems a good time to go a little theological.. Those of us who are confessional Lutherans, recognize the doctrine of Two kingdoms. As God’s children, we live in both the earthly kingdom, ruled by men, and the heavenly kingdom, ruled by God. This past Sunday’s Gospel lesson, has applications in both kingdoms, and I pray that this will aid our brother Darth in his contemplations.

The lesson to which I refer is Matthew 10:34-42.

In Matthew 10, Jesus has identified the Twelve, and sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of Heaven to the people of Galilee and Judea. Before they left, our Lord gave them instructions on how to conduct their missionary work, and on what to expect from those to whom they preached. verses 34-42 are at the tail end of this discourse.

In these 9 verses, Jesus tells the Twelve(and us) three things. The first is that which also applies to the earthly Kingdom.

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

The message is simple, those who responded to the Gospel message, began to see the world differently. They thought differently and they behaved differently. Those who rejected the Gospel message did not change. Those who responded to the Gospel, became a part of God’s family, while those who did not, remained in Satan’s grasp. The things of Satan cannot abide the things of God, which is what caused the discord Jesus spoke of.

In our Temporal, secular world, the same thing happens. Bad and evil cannot tolerate good, and will do everything it can to shut down the expression of good. In our nation, we see this happen all around us. I would give examples, but I suspect that all in this forum have their own list.

The bottom line folks, is that if good is to triumph in our nation, of we are to remain a free nation of citizens, rather than the enslaved subjects of some sort of dictatorship, we mus continue to make our voices heard. This is true for the Church in proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is true for those in the political world who fight to maintain our liberty.

Down here at the Southern Command, we’re also going through a step of change. Nothing personal with the command staff or base personnel, but rather at our chosen house of worship. For the past 13 months our church has been without a Senior Pastor. The reasons are not necessary at this time, the only thing that is relevant is that there has not been a man in that position for some time. A few weeks ago, the search committee announced that they had found someone who fit and next Sunday our new Senior Pastor will preach his first sermon to our congregation.

So in his last message as Interim, our Executive Pastor reminded us that in order to move forward we as a church need to leave the past in the past (yes, learn from the past but leave it in the past) and in order to move forward there are several walls that are self-placed that are a barrier from moving forward. Those walls need to come down so we as a church can indeed move forward with a fresh start and change our focus on that which our new pastor brings forward to us. I won’t repeat his whole sermon, but the key points are what needs to be mentioned here, because they are pertinent for us all at this time. And they are something we all can certainly work on to break down.

The walls that need to come down are:

Unfaithfulness

Anger

Apathy

Failure

Sin

Pride

The scripture passage he used to help illustrate these walls is Joshua chapter six. This is the story of Joshua and how God instructed him to deal with the city of Jericho. If you know the story you can certainly see the parallels. Like Darth, it certainly may be time to take a good hard look at the walls in front of us that need to be broken down to allow us to return to moving forward.

I have a friend on Facebook – the other aspect thereof which the Vicar referenced the other day – whom, after the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship, was ripping former owner Donald Carter for committing the allegedly cardinal sin of standing up there on the podium (at Mark Cuban’s invitation) and accepting the trophy from NBA commish David Stern.

(Apparently, my friend had it in for Mr. Carter all these years for the alleged reason he sold the Mavs to H. Ross Pee-rot, Junior.)

Now, my friend posted these thoughts on FB, in full view of God ‘n Ever’body. I thought it a very classless thing to do (still do), and gave serious consideration to publicly challenging him on it, unfriending him and telling his ass off before the whole world – both on FB, and here.

As you probably know by now, I wound up doing none of those things. For once, I held my notoriously acidic tongue. About the only thing I did was withhold birthday wishes from him last week.

I just found out, a few minutes ago, that my friend died two hours ago of a heart attack. And it has hit me with all the force of a ten-ton wrecking ball at full speed.

Right now, I don’t have words. I am, for one of the few times in my life, utterly speechless. And in the silence, I’m thinking hard about a few things.

Including this blog.

It’s time for some re-evaluations around here. Vicar, General – you guys have the conn.

UPDATE: Obviously, I’d not read the General’s own pullback announcement (the gravity of this post will prevent me from making the obvious smartassed remark about it).

General, just do what you can. Vicar – a sermon outline or two would come in handy at the moment.

Well, I was going to start off by torturing Korrioth, but it seems that routine has gotten as predictable as Al Obambi and his progressive libtards and their ubiquitous “Blame Bush” mantra. Or so the feedback coming in is.

KORRIOTH: DaHjaj ghaj taH QaQ jaj Daq Hegh

SG Rayegun: Indeed.

But rather than that, I just mention that the Generalette and I are going to in lurk mode for the next couple of weeks. We’ve had family at the Main Residence this weekend, as well as some improvements to the Main Residence as well. There will also be an upcoming TDY and some other minor things happening around the base that will require my attention.

Denizens, by now you’ve heard about this doofus flying for Southwest Airlines that made an ass of himself over the air:

Southwest Airlines was once well known for hiring only female flight attendants and dressing them in hot pants. At least one of its pilots apparently dislikes that it’s not like that anymore.

“Eleven f***ing over-the-top f***ing a** f***ing homosexuals and a granny. Eleven! I mean, think of the odds of that,” the unidentified pilot said during a March flight.

[...]
The pilot labeled his Chicago-based flight crew as a “continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes.”

“So in six months I went to the bar three times; in six months, three times. Once with the granny and the f*g, and I wished I hadn’t gone,” he said.

For his tirade, the guy got a suspension and was ordered to undergo that time-honored liberal method of sticking it to conservatives, Christians and/or white men in general – THENTHITIVITY TWAINING!!!!!

That’s not good enough for some fat-assed fraulines flight attendants, though. Several of them are thinking about filing an EEOC complaint.

Oh, that’ll get the guy frog-marched into the federal hoosegow.

Here’s my question the Professionally Offended in this case: What criminal statute has this guy violated?

I’m not much of a fan of Chris Christie. A little liberal to my liking, somewhat to the left of Rudy Giuliani.

But ya gotta love it when he tells off a liberal union goon because he doesn’t care what she thinks.

Case in point: The other day, some union bimbo named “Gail” posed a “gotcha” question concerning Christie’s cutting public school government school funding when he himself sent his kids to private school.

And Christie turned on the question and knocked it outta the park.

“You don\u2019t send your children to public schools. You send them to private schools, so I was wondering why you think it’s fair to be cutting funding to public schools?” the woman asked.

It was a question Christie has gotten before, but this time it seemed to have gotten under his skin.

“Hey Gail, you know what, first of all it’s none of your business. I don’t ask you where you send your kids to school. Don’t bother me where I send mine,” the governor responded.

Now, the leftist whiners are bitching long & loud on the site – it is See-BS, after all – and truth be told, I’m not as fond of all of Christie’s policies as many people are.

The point of this is to demonstrate that there’s a right way to speak to Demoscum – the way Christie’s doing it…and a wrong way to go about it (most every current Republican milquetoast presidential candidate).

Memo to the GOP: You spineless pissweasels could learn a thing or two from folks like Chris Christie & Donald Trump.

Look at how they do things. Look at how they don’t take shit from anyone, least of all the Lame Stream Media.

Learn it love it, live it – and verily I say unto thee, we kick Bambi’s ass in 2012.

Now, apparently, Bea Arthur’s character is suffering from what they call “chronic fatigue syndrome” (something from which the show’s creator, Susan Harris, apparently suffers) – essentially, she’s got a virus, but that’s not dramatic enough, so let’s give it an ominous-sounding name, mkay? – and her doctor is apparently not bending over backwards to make her feel like a po’ widdle pwincess.

So “Dorothy” gives her ex-doc a sanctimonious, self-righteous tongue-lashing in a public place. Which gets a major response from what is likely a leftard excuse-for-an-audience.

She then goes over and watches mutely (albeit with a shocked, SHOCKED expression on her face) as Estelle Getty’s character essentially pulls a con on the restaurant manager to get a free, high-class meal. Again, to the delirious approval of the audience.

So, essentially, Susan Harris is lampooning about the (lack of) morality of an allegedly-uncaring doctor…then demonstrating her own lack of morality by having her characters con an expensive restaurant (and apparently giving her approval over it).

And the audience just laps it up.

And then we all wonder why this country’s going to hell in a handbasket.

Was not this sort of action on the part of the British, one of the reasons our founders chose to separate from England?

While I am thinking of it, emergency response teams may wish to go on heightened alert at the Southern Command, and VHQ(Venomous headquarters). This is the sort of thing which has been known to give both the General and his nastiness massive strokes!

Ed Driscoll has a real nice memorial on the passing of Clarence “Big Man” Clemons today. Well worth your time to read.

Back during my college days, the E Street Band (with Bruce Springsteen) was at its zenith with The River, Nebraska and Born in the USA on the heels of Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. And it was Clarence Clemons who provided the signature sound of the E Street Band with his saxophone.

The Realm extends its condolences to the Clemons family during this time. He will be missed.

(Hat tip for the new title to Patterico, who got it from some of his commenters.)

Fox News is reporting (and the lovely & gracious Michelle is apparentlyconfirming) that Little Toni Weenie – the star of the hit reality series Whom Can I Tweet My Dick To Today?! – is, after weeks of defiantly (and arrogantly, I might add) maintaining that he won’t step down…stepping down.

It helps, though, if you have Microsoft Internet Explorer set about 1024x768 1280x1024 with your Favorites window activated on the left deactivated. (At least until I can get a better handle on how WordPress works.)